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We are strategists and designers, technologists and educators, experience-inventors and
community-creators. Our services include interaction and visual design, brand strategy and
development, content creation and strategy, design research and software development,
storytelling across platforms, and event ideation and launch.

Starkey Hearing Foundation (SHF) is an
international aid organization that distributes and fits more than 100,000 free hearing aids a year to deaf children and adults in impoverished areas worldwide.

During our two-year engagement as agency of record, we provided a wide range of creative services that effectively transformed SHF’s brand identity and expanded awareness of their work. We began by developing a Brand Blueprint which documented a central unifying brand archetype, a powerful lexicon, succinct positioning, and the communication channels necessary for successful movement-based marketing. The Blueprint informed our subsequent efforts to develop their website, print magazine, print collateral, and a mobile app to encourage teen volunteerism. We also conceived and implemented Listen Carefully, a national campaign to protect the hearing of American teens. The campaign included creation of a middle school curriculum, a live event, and a celebrity-endorsed contest.

Global Hearing Health Initiative

Creating New Systems for
Transformation

Starkey Hearing Foundation fits children and adults with hearing aids, free of charge, all over the world. They asked us for organizational design—to conceive of an aftercare program that would continue care beyond those first fittings.

The Global Hearing Health Initiative is a resilient system that enables people to have the support, tools, and resources needed to incorporate sound into their lives in lasting and meaningful ways. In our design, key actors include hearing aid recipients and their families, community support networks, local care teams, and regional ambassadors. We conceived of paper- and internet-based prototypes to facilitate education and training, community building, knowledge sharing, and data collection and evaluation. In addition, our research generated pilot programs with selection criteria and timelines.

Wondros translates the complex ideas of the world’s most innovative companies, organizations, and movements into films that inspire passion, incite action, and propel change.

We provide design and creative consulting to Wondros and partner with them to create films for transformative healthcare organizations. Using documentary, narrative, and animation techniques, our films solidify organizations’ messages, hone their stories, and make their efforts known to a broader audience. Clients include Pearl Jam Foundation, Centers for Disease Control, Gladstone Institutes, James M. Anderson Center for Health Systems Excellence, and many others.

To maximize impact, we often intertwine films with our service offerings such as website development, event creation, and educational outreach programs.

CIVILITY

Helping People Retire Ready

Civility aims to improve the financial health of Americans by providing them with personal money coaches, for life, as well as educational curricula and more effective retirement planning strategies.

Civility asked us to design and build a set of web and mobile applications to help members work in collaboration with their coaches to plan, track, and achieve their financial goals. To accomplish this, we created a financial health activation scale to guide the design of tools that will encourage Civility members to consistently take small actions leading them to improved financial well-being.

Planned to launch in early 2013, our tools will help Civility provide American workers with a valuable and lifelong benefit: caring, compassionate, and tangible support so they can achieve financial health and retire ready.

The California Endowment is a private, statewide foundation dedicated to expanding access to affordable healthcare in low-income neighborhoods and improving the health of all Californians. We designed their first interactive annual report in collaboration with our filmmaking partner, Wondros, to showcase the progress The Endowment has made with its many initiatives.

A playful map, our infographic for The Endowment combines numerical data and hard facts with narrative storytelling in the form of short films, and makes it easy for everyone to understand The Endowment’s three main campaigns—Schools, Neighborhoods, and Prevention—where health happens.

Layers of information unfold as visitors discover stories from children, adults, and community leaders who are all part of California’s journey to better health.

ONE

Calculating a World of Good

Renowned social justice organization ONE asked us to visualize the relationships between U.S. taxes and global poverty. We designed and developed an interactive Tax Tool that shows where individual tax dollars go, including national defense, social security, health, unemployment, Medicare, and foreign assistance. The design of the tool allows people to easily see how a small fraction of the U.S. budget has already drastically improved the lives of the poorest people on the planet, and how individuals can personally contribute to the effort.

The Tax Tool became a successful internal campaign for ONE and enhanced their awareness-raising, policy-affecting, and life-saving efforts. Our design for the Interactive Tax Tool was also shortlisted for an Information is Beautiful Award in the category of interactive visualization.

The Angiogenesis Foundation increases international awareness of the leading cause of vision loss for those over 65 (wet AMD), the role of angiogenesis (new blood vessel growth) in vision loss, and the importance of treatments for affected individuals.

We developed The Science of AMD website using universal design values—guidelines that support designs accessible to people with disabilities. In addition to the site, we created the brand identity and content strategy for the Science of AMD. Our design elements to aid the visually impaired include a large default typeface with toggle adjustment for type size, use of highly contrasting colors, and inclusion of audio. Site content empowers visitors with knowledge about treatments, steps to protect vision, the importance of early detection, and summaries of symptoms, trials, and resources.

LCRN

Connecting Researchers and Health Providers

Life Course Research Network (LCRN) is a collaborative network of researchers, healthcare providers, and thought leaders committed to improving health and reducing disease by examining health’s origins and how it develops over the lifespan. We created LCRN’s first presence on the web and tailored a social networking tool to encourage communication and collaboration among network members.

After solidifying LCRN’s strategic identity, we designed brand elements, wrote content, then designed and developed the website. In addition to effectively translating LCRN’s mission to a broader audience, the site supports the network’s vast article and webinar library, detailed biographical pages of key members, and provides information and access to the LCRN network.

Early Developmental Systems Initiative (EDSI) is a five-year, $5.5 million multidisciplinary project to help children with developmental problems. EDSI improves early identification and enables critical interventions for these children by transforming community health systems in L.A. County.

To shed light on the fragmented system of healthcare for families struggling with developmental issues and to spread EDSI’s message of how change can occur, the Initiative needed to reach a tipping point in public and clinician awareness. They turned to us to help them tell their story. We analyzed EDSI’s strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities, and identified the essence of a powerful strategic identity which culminated in a Brand Blueprint, logo creation, and web presence. To further increase awareness, we helped them create a film to share with their partners and funders.

To discuss how our services can help your organization further its mission,
please contact us at info@lybba.org or (323) 653-2300.